Isla San Francisco

January 11, 2009by Steven at sea

We’ve been waiting out a gale at Isla San Francisco for the last three days and we’ll probably be here another two. Isla San Francisco is a beautiful desert island with a large, crescent-shaped bay on the south side. We’re anchored with ten other sailboats, including Om Shanti who wrote the local guide. There are no trees on the island, so even though we’re tucked in with a cliff between us and the prevailing wind we still get regular gusts stronger than the wind forecast for open waters. Occasionally
a light swell wraps around the point and into the bay.

Isla San Francisco

Luckily the island is great. We found crystals and shells on the beach. There are several short hikes and a small salt flat. We also had a wonderful time snorkeling near the western edge of the bay where we saw lots of different tropical fish in their natural habitat. It was wonderful swimming with all of the brightly coloured, and camouflage coloured, fish. This was our first sighting of brightly coloured fish on our voyage.

Steven on Isla San Francisco

We’re nine days and 44 miles out of La Paz, we’ve had northerly wind the entire time, sometimes light, sometimes not. In addition to the large-scale patterns, the winds here seem to ease in the afternoon and pick up precisely at sunset. We hope to make our way north to Bahia Conception. If we get the right weather we’ll arrive by the end of the month. We intend to stop in Los Gatos, Aqua Verde, and Puerto Escondito on the way.